The One Week Relationship: Charlotte and Harry

January 13, 2015

Sunday, January 4

We were going to go for a Thai lunch but Lennon Glasses stepped it up with an offer for a movie, Big Eyes. I eagerly accepted. “I’ll even hold your hand,” he wrote. Damn he was cute! I was thrilled. It had been so long that I had wished for someone to just go to a damn movie with. Someone who would hold my hand and kiss me in the dark.

“I’m going to lunch and a movie!” I texted Liz. It was like a Tinder miracle.

Before he arrived I wondered if he would show up as casual as before. He wasn’t coming from work. Would the hoodie make an appearance again? Did I care? I admit that I cared a little. I like when a guy dresses up. I like to dress nice to go out. But the last thing in the world I want is to try to change someone. People don’t change for other people. They change for themselves. I knew that wanting someone to change was a rotten way to start a relationship. I would accept him where he is, I decided. And hope that he could accept me where I was.

He showed up to pick me up and yes, there it was, the hoodie. Driving away, he looked at me and asked, “Am I underdressed?”

“Wear whatever you want,” I said.

“Good,” he replied.

“He’s the Harry to your Charlotte,” Liz would later say.

Sunday was his day to call his son in Iceland, the only time he was allowed to talk to him. The 10-year old was being unenthusiastic so he cut it short, telling him, “I gotta go see about a girl.”

Ten points for the Good Will Hunting line.

We had Thai and continued to get to know each other before heading to the theater. We found our seats and watched as mostly older women trickled in. Talking all the time, he held my hand as we waited for the feature to begin. To his credit, he didn’t talk often during the movie, only to make an observation or ask for the popcorn. I put my feet up on the seat and he put his hand under my jeans, touching my ankle. We made out in the dark back row, the only couple in a sea of aunties. I liked the way he kissed. I craved his kisses and enjoyed his touch.

The movie was good and we walked out discussing it. He talked more about himself as he drove and I asked, “And never married?”

“No,” he said. “I want it all. I want unconditional love.” he answered.

“So are you going to turn into a pumpkin now?” he asked. “Yeah,” I said. “I need to get ready for work tomorrow. He took me home and I kissed him in the car as he sat with his seatbelt still on. I thought about that first kiss with Z. I know I have to stop comparing others to that impossible ideal. I just thought it was funny that he kept his seatbelt on.

“Let’s have some quality time together next week,” he said. A movie and wine. I agreed.

Monday, January 5

He left it up to me to suggest a weekday that we could watch a movie at one of our places. Tomorrow was too soon, I had a freelance writing assignment to complete. Wednesday was the vetting of Mr. Gray, a prospect I was looking forward to less and less. I suggested Thursday.

“Why Thursday,” he asked, hinting that it was a long time to wait. “I have plans with friends on Wednesday,” I answered.

After work we texted about movies again. We were going back and forth when he wrote, “Call me if you want to hear my movie list.” I called.

“There she is,” he answered.

“You want to actually talk on the phone? What is this 1995?” I teased.

“I just finished watching a documentary on Jimmy Carter and Edward R Murrow,” he said.

Are you kidding me? Who does that? Where’s this guy been all my life?

“We’ll have to talk about the realignment of the Democratic party Thursday,” I said.

I lay in bed and talked to him for hours. He’s so easy to talk to. And we can discuss anything and everything. Our pasts, our personal lives, politics, books, stupid, silly tv shows. Everything.

“Can I tell you something?” I asked him.

“Sure.”

“You have a really nice voice.” His strange, meandering thoughts come forth in a smooth, deep, almost baritone sound. He doesn’t talk to me. He coos to me.

I told him that I walked every day. He offered to come with me some time.

“I walk fast,” I warned.

“I can walk fast,” he said.

“Anytime. Just let me know,” I said.

“I’m not going to come unless you invite me.”

“Ok, you want to meet me tomorrow?”

“I’ll be there.” he said.

I fell asleep around 2am with a smile on my face.

Tuesday, January 6

I don’t know why, but all day I was nervous about seeing him that evening. I think I was beginning to really like him. Or maybe it was the combination of wanting to be with him while having plans to meet Mr. Gray Hair the next day. It did seem a little wrong. But that’s what dating was supposed to be, right? I don’t know how to date more than one person at a time and I’m not sure I want to. But we had met only three days ago. Was there a sense of obligation, of exclusivity at this point? I didn’t know. I was anxious to get the Match meet and greet over with, hoping I would hate the guy and be done with it. I wanted to see where this might go.

I picked him up after work at his place, about a mile from mine. Since he would be with me, we could go to Girard Park instead of the neighborhood I usually walk in after dark. The day before one of my headlights burned out. That evening the second one went out. It was dusk when I was driving, so it wasn’t a problem but it would dark when I drove home.

I told him about the headlights and he went into “fix-it man,” mode. When we got to the park, he asked me to check the brake lights and looked at the headlights. He was about to ask me something else but I got out of the car and headed to the walking trail saying, “I’ll get it fixed tomorrow at lunch.” He joined me.

We talked easily and laughed often. We exchanged tv show quotes and I struggled to remember an IT Crowd character, yelling loudly, “Richmond! It’s Richmond,” when I remembered. He had told me that he had dropped out of high school and never attended college. We were passing by the basketball court when he made an observation about pick-up games. “I learned the hard way,” he said. “it’s not about skill. It’s a war of attrition.”

“A war of attrition.” How many people in the general population know what that means? How many in Lafayette that I’m attracted to? I didn’t know what that meant until I studied the Vietnam War in 2005 at Tulane. The more I talked to Lennon Glasses, the more I was aware that I was with an extraordinary person.

He told me I was a “coiled spring.” That I was kinetic energy waiting to be released. I’m not sure I understand what he meant. I still don’t.

By the third lap, he held my hand, then he put his arm around me. He slowed down for the last leg and then turned me around before we got to my car and kissed me. We moved off the trail and walked into the grass. We lay on the grass and made out. I told him I really liked him and I wanted to take it slow. “I’m not moving,” he said. We stayed there for a while, kissing, looking at each other and talking until my hunger overcame the craving I had developed for his kisses.

We got in the car and I tested the high beams. “At least these work,” I said.

“That’s what I wanted to find out before we walked,” he said. “But you were single-minded.”

“Single minded huh?” I said, not liking the sound of that.

I drove away, taking narrow, well-lit streets. “I would have felt better walking with you if I had known that the high beams worked before we walked. But you were going to walk, no matter what. Single-minded.”

“Huh,” I said again. “I prefer the word, ‘focused.'”

“You know what’s interesting about this conversation?” I asked him. “That you just articulated clearly how you felt without needing to place blame or be right. Not many men can do that,” I said.

“Well, I guess it’s experience and trial and error,” he said.

But it’s not, I was thinking. It’s a lack of something. Hubris? Anger? Lennon Glasses seemed to have this missing link about him, this absence of the need to take someone else down, to make someone less, in order to communicate simply and clearly.

“Are we fighting?” I asked jokingly.

“No,” he said. “We’re discussing.”

I took him home and he noticed the ever-present orange, you’re-out-of-gas light on my dashboard.

“You need gas,” he said.

“No, I’ve got about an eight of an inch left,” I countered.

“You can’t be controlled, can you?” he asked.

“Well, you can try, but you’ll be disappointed,” I said.

I kissed him goodnight. I took off my seatbelt off to move my body closer to his. I leaned back and looked at him.

“You know I’m ok with not taking slow, right?” he asked.

I leaned up with my hands on the steering wheel, “I know.”

“Do you have any kind of hang-ups about sex?” he asked. “If so, that might be something I need to know.”

I looked over at him. “No, I don’t have any hang ups. I just want to get to know you.”

“Ok,” he said. “I’ll see you Thursday.”

As I parked my car, he called. He didn’t have his keys and wallet. I checked my car. They werent’ there. He drove to the park and called me. “I found them. They were in a nice, neat pile in the grass. Are you missing something?”

“Yeah, my glasses, I think. But it’s ok. I have readers. I can get them later.”

“I was going to drive over and drop them off. I don’t have to if you don’t want me to.”

“Just bring me my damn glasses,” I said.

I left the door open and sat my desk. He arrived and stood at the door, my glasses in his hands.